Richard Lee

17 hours ago, G-BOAF said:

Probably won't be too long before someone reviews the 'cool new packaging' on youtube, and says how much they like it, and how it looks like the track is frozen in a block of ice (cue someone else actually freezing some track in their freezer to compare). Then suddenly all our track comes packaged that way.

(I'm currently in the process of return multiple locomotives which have had the finish damaged by tight solid plastic packaging)

A friend with whom I wargame sometimes makes videos, so maybe that could be arranged...

51 minutes ago, 34theletterbetweenB&D said:

The equation that is not being explored is what a complete current loco drive 4F (Bach or Hornby) can be got for [snip]

Bachmann 3F nearly £64 at a certain Cornish model shop:

http://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/p/51180/31-627B-Bachmann-Class-3F-Steam-Locomotive-number-3520-LMS

Bachmann 4F nearly £65:

http://www.kernowmodelrailcentre.com/p/51184/31-883-Bachmann-Midland-Class-4F-Steam-Locomotive-number-3848

I happened to buy the 3F from them a few weeks ago and was pleased with it, and the price.

15 minutes ago, Mjpscott@gmail.com said:

Where do you order from - is there a Web Site?

https://westhillwagonworks.co.uk/

They seem to be concentrating on fairly modern stock at present.  From the video they look impressive if you don't need automatic uncoupling.  I wonder whether they would be any good for a 1930s/ branch line with small 4-wheeled wagons?  I will watch this thread with interest.

Concerning prices, it does seem to me that Bachmann have significantly increased their prices.  I noticed the MRP or whatever they call it of the new Birdcage Stock coaches.  They aren't  going to be an impulse buy for me anytime soon, although I did shell out for the earlier Maunsell Green ones when their price eased down a little.  Last night I ordered a Bachmann 3F 0-6-0 tender locomotive from Kernow, for coming up to £64.  If the price had been approaching £200 then I don't think that I would have bothered.

The message seems to me to look for stuff that seems good, but that is closer to your preferred budget.

27 minutes ago, PaulRhB said:

I think small radius would be equally as popular, if not more so, for smaller layouts especially with the Pecketts, Barclays and Terriers etc. Breweries, Collieries, docks & factories all had examples of smaller radii trackwork and as micros are very popular with the space available to many I reckon would probably sell more than x-large radii.....[snip]

Forgot about that.  There are some very nice industrial locos around, so industrial layouts are a reasonable bet now.  Must admit that my junction to BLT 'L' shape would find more use for small than for extra-large points, although I want to keep minimum radius for anything except light engines to no less than 30", ideally 3'.

I do like the Bullhead medium points.  If I was seriously thinking about a new layout or replacing the track of my existing one, it would make the choice of track type easier.  Not sure whether a small point would be necessary, though.  A small point would be useful for loco release to run around loops (no wagons or carriages would go through) and loco sheds, but at a pinch, the Code 75 flat-bottomed rail ones could be used, with a bit of weathering and "careless" ballasting to disguise them.

Many people would like larger radius points, which would look really great on layouts that model main or secondary lines.

What I would like is a simple way of switching polarity for Unifrog points for the purpose of frog and DC power routing.  I know that Tortoise and Cobalt point motors do that, but I am a bit mean with money and also like to operate points by hand.  A cheap, unobtrusive, hand-operated lever with built in microswitch to attach to Unifrog points would be of great interest to me.

One thing that they could do to get a few extra sales is to offer the four-wheeled red coaches as a bargain pack with a tin of mahogany paint and a sheet of LB&SC Railway stickers for Stroudley era coaches.

I like the Langley ones, although they dearer than a lot of plastics.  You can buy footplate crew that fit in Hornby Terriers.  They also footplate crew in the old  "pill-box" type caps, in case you have any locos in Victorian or Edwardian livery.  They have quite a lot suitable for pre-grouping or Big Four layouts.  I would say that the level of casting is quite good.  There are a lot of white metal 15mm wargames figures around that need a lot more tidying up with knife and file.

http://www.langley-models.co.uk/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_OO_Scale__1_76th____HO_Scale__1_87th__Kits_8.html

Must admit that for passengers for coaches, I am getting a bit less fussy about the figures that I use, except when headgear or lack of it would be important.  Once, I bought a couple of Mainline paneled early LMS coaches, added metal wheels and Kadees, and put in some cheap plastic figures that I believe were made in China.   I joked about the coaches representing an excursion from Chinatown in Liverpool.  (The figures all had black hair and a yellowish skin tone.)  The difference between using bargain basement figures for seated passengers compared with using reasonable figures is not really noticeable if you don't have lights in the coaches.  The main exception is that I believe that hats and caps tended to be different in Victorian and Edwardian times, so I would still use decent figures, at least near windows.

14 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Running/performance qualities of these little animals, when supplied from a good analogue controller, marks out ten?

 

I’m wondering whether to get the LSWR one when it arrives, so feedback would be much appreciated. 
 

 

Won't give marks out of 10 because I don't have a huge number of locos, and trains tend to be short on my layout.

Pulling power is comparable with the old Terrier, but possibly a shade lighter.  The new Hornby Terrier can cope with a rake of 3 Bachmann's Birdcage Stock very well.  You have to be a little careful at low speeds (running on DC) with 2 Hornby's ex-LSWR Maunsell re-builds because those coaches are not very free-running, though.  It doesn't make a lot of difference if you add a Parkside passenger luggage/guards van at the back of the ex-LSWR re-builds.  Please note that my layout does not have intentional gradients.  Concerning prototype, so far I haven't found too many pictures of single Terriers pulling more than 3 bogie coaches, or 2 bogie coaches and a few goods wagons.

The new Terrier seems to like to go slightly faster than the old (ex-Dapol tooling) Hornby Terriers, but is a lot quieter, and looks a lot more like the pictures of Terriers with coaches that you see in the Hayling Island Branch Line book.  (I think that the old Terrier is taller than it should have been.)

10 hours ago, BernardTPM said:

They did, but probably not before 1929 and as replicas. I would question the wheelbase of the carriages, longer than the contemporary engravings and, perhaps more tellingly, longer than the not-much-later replica carriages built to go with Der Adler.

That sounds almost as if I can legitimately run it on my layout, assuming the Rocket ran on Southern Railway branch lines in the 1930s.

I notice that both the limited edition and the normal train pack are shown as sold-out on pre-order at Hattons.  I am glad that I got my pre-order in on time.

Edit:  I think Kernow still have some.

Can't speak for others, but I will be keeping an eye open for Dapol Stroudley 4-wheeled coaches in OO.  If I remember correctly, Hattons will be doing their coaches in the umber LBSCR livery rather than Mahogany (which is what I would tend to expect with locomotives in Stroudley Improved Engine Green).  I have pre-ordered some of Hatton's coaches in SECR livery for my SECR liveried Terrier to pull.  At the moment, I use mahogany painted resin kits for my IEG liveried Terriers, but I imagine that Dapol can make better looking coaches than I can.  Whatever happens, I want my LBSCR coaches to look a bit different from the SECR ones.

19 hours ago, Wickham Green said:

Wot's rong wiv glass plates then ?

Glass plates?  What is wrong with oil paintings?

You might find that Metcalfe sometimes stop production of a kit, and a little later bring back a revised version.  If you can't get hold of one now, it may be worth keeping your eyes on the Metcalfe site for the next couple of months.

Train-Tech do vibration-triggered battery-powered coach lighting that has a delay before it switches off.  It stays on for short periods (such as stops at stations).  It uses batteries that are about the size and shape of large coins.  The batteries are of a type that are readily available.  If you have a lot of coaches then this method might not be cost effective, though.  Works well, although I haven't bothered to replace the batteries lately, so not at the moment on my layout.  By the way, the batteries last longer if you don't live right on a busy road with heavy lorries and agricultural vehicles where the coaches are stored near the road, triggering the coach lights.

Link to an example at Hattons:

https://www.hattons.co.uk/80686/train_tech_cl2_standard_coach_lighting_strips_warm_white/stockdetail.aspx

Wall-paper paste would do it.  When I did my layout, I mixed the paste a little strong, as if it was for a heavy paper or for a paper border.  Keep a little of the made-up paste for a couple of days in case you have to stick down a corner again.

Edit:  It is also a good idea to dilute a bit of the paste first, brush it onto the part(s) of the board that you want to stick the static grass mat onto, and let it dry before you stick the mat on.  Otherwise the board will absorb the paste on the back of the mat too quickly, and you are more likely to get wrinkles in the mat.

In other words, do it as if you were wall-papering a small piece of wall that just happens to be horizontal rather than vertical.

My layout uses Kadees but doesn't suffer from the Kadee shuffle.  When something needs to be uncoupled a giant hand bearing a tooth-pick descends from the sky and gently inserts the tooth-pick between the jaws of the couplings.

22 hours ago, wasdavetheroad said:

snip...

 

My vision of the future is a system that can work on track or battery power and seamlessly switches between them. Charging the battery from the track should be included which means the battery can be considered a large stay alive with unlimited capacity. This would allow for considerably simpler wiring as there would be no need to wire the fiddly bits of the layout.  Track/battery switching has already been demonstrated in BlueRails first board which was too large for most OO locos. There next board should be  a lot smaller with more features.

 

What we will end up with is a system that allows you to run your locos on track power, either DC or DCC, battery or a combination of them. Radio control will be the norm and it already demonstrates the capability to have hundreds of locos on your layout if you wish.  ...snip

If I understand the last couple of Protocab newsletters, Protocab seems to be getting to be able to seamlessly flip between track power and battery, recharging the battery when there is track power.  They are still in pre-production mode for this, with a discount for pre-orders.  That said, Protocab is an expensive way of controlling your locos.  If I was brave enough to try radio control battery power I would be tempted to look at Deltang as well, as a cheaper option.

58 minutes ago, phil_sutters said:

Excuse me, but has anyone checked whether their porters have the correct number of buttons on their waistcoats? What breed of cattle are appropriate for your rural branch line? Be pleased with what ever is on offer, it is so much more than when I was modelling railways in the 1960s. It is only a hobby - enjoy it!

I use the Dexters from Langley for my 1930s SR branch line.  I hope that they will still be okay for when I run my SECR liveried Hornby Terrier with the set of Hattons 4 and 6 wheelers that I have pre-ordered.

Sadly, I can see the coaches now when I use new navigation system.  This could be bad both for customer pockets and rival shops.

Edit: Windows 7 on second-hand Dell laptop.

Doesn't show any products for me, although it tells me that that there are a total of 22Hornby OO coaches (including new and pre-owned) that are SR Maunsell in SR Olive Green, either in stock or on order, Era 3, from the UK without weathering.  I commend it for potentially saving customers lots of money!

I use Windows 7 on a Dell laptop.

They would need tooling that can deal with changes.  By the time they got to the Isle of Wight the carriages had grown truss-rodding and batteries for electric lighting.  Also, I think the guards' duckets looked different.  The varieties of coach used most may have altered as well; I have a feeling that the sets on the IOW consisted of 2 brake thirds (at the ends), a composite and an all third.  It looks to me as if the LB&SCR photos of the Hayling Branch that I have seen included full brakes.

One possible option that might or might not appeal, is an 'L' shaped layout inside the house.  That won't, of course, give you a continuous run, but would allow you some use (for household purposes) of the room it is it is in.  My layout takes up 2 walls of the spare bedroom.  It is enough for my SR branch-line.

Am I on my own here?

 

I thought post 6867 was in bad taste but it seems to have been the cue for several war jokes. 6867 however implies that war is a "National game" for Germans. I know it was only a joke but I'm not sure most Germans would see that accusation as funny. ( not a cue for comments on German sense of humour)

 

I would not expect many laughs if I referred to "occupation and colonisation" as a British national sport for the same reason.

Perhaps we learned it from the Irish?  Did you know that there is part of Great Britain that is now named after a people from Ireland who invaded during the Post-Roman period?  There are still some people in the North West of that area still speaking a language based upon Irish?  Apparently Great Britain extends north of the Rivers Sark and Tweed.

I have 2 Mainline ones in LMS livery, and they do indeed have the numbers TheSignalEngineer quotes.  I also have 3 fairly recent Bachmann ones in LMS livery.  The differences that I can see are the coach numbers, the Bachmann ones have better corridor connections, the coaches have either "Bachmann" or "Mainline" on the underside as appropriate, and the Bachmann ones came with metal wheels, whereas I had to swap the plastic wheels of the Mainline ones for metal wheels myself.  Oh, and the grey roof colour is slightly different, although well within the variation that you might see in a photograph of a prototype steam-age train.

Neither the Bachmann nor the Mainline ones have NEM pockets, but can readily be bodged to accept Kadees.

I am pleased with them, and they were relatively inexpensive.  The 3 Bachmann coaches came free when I bought the running-in oval and controller, along with a 4-4-0 Midland Railway liveried Compound for £150.  The only problem that I have is that my layout isn't really big enough for 5 coach trains.